The 100th anniversary of the birth of Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, will be marked on December 11. In advance of that occasion, an eye bandage appeared on a statue of Mahfouz in Cairo, apparently placed there as a show of solidarity with protesters injured in recent clashes.

Human rights activists accused police of using excessive force during last month's demonstrations in Cairo, with many people sustaining eye injuries. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a campaign group, said that it had seen records documenting 60 cases of eye injuries at one hospital alone.

Ghada Shahbender, a member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, told The Associated Press that she had heard soldiers being ordered to aim rubber bullets at protesters' heads.

Agence France Presse reported on December 1 that a policeman nicknamed the "eye sniper" had handed himself in for questioning after mobile phone footage circulated that appeared to show him aiming at protesters' eyes.